#The cold war cnn series

But he castigates the series for demonstrating that an exaggerated American perception of the Communist threat contributed to a dangerous nuclear-arms race, as well as insecurity and some anti-democratic practices at home.

He ignores Cold War‘s praise for Western policies of opposition to Stalinism in Europe (see the programs “Berlin Blockade” and “Marshall Plan”) and in Asia.

Instead, he “unmasks” a hostile pattern using selective quotations and his own flawed judgment of history. Schoenfeld is not satisfied with damning the series with faint praise. This ideological bent may explain why he approaches the cold war not as a complex historical drama with multiple meanings, but simply as a crusade against the “evil empire.” Schoenfeld has many axes to grind: against the Communist sympathizers and fellow-travelers of the 1930’s, “revisionist” historians of the 1960’s, pro-detente liberals of the 1970’s, and Ted Turner and “peaceniks” of the 1980’s. But as a historian and one of the principal consultants for the series, I simply do not see anti-American “conspiracy” or falsification in the film. As a Russian who very much longed for freedom and democracy, I am with Mr. Gabriel Schoenfeld claims that CNN’s Cold War is an anti-American concoction that excuses “the most egregious Soviet conduct” and ignores a battle “between good and evil, between freedom and slavery, between democracy and totalitarianism.” He also claims that some episodes contain “deliberate historical falsification.” I am proud to have my name associated with it-as a consultant. Finally, I remain convinced that this series presents the cold war more effectively than has been done or ever will be done again on television. Second, I had assumed-naively, it now seems-that critics would understand the distinction between authorship and consultancy. First, the ground rules were clear from the outset: the producers, not the consultants, were to have the last word.

But should I have withdrawn from the series because I did not get my way at all times? It never occurred to me to do so, for several reasons. There are, of course, some things I would have done differently had I had such authority. I did not, in any part of the CNN project, have editorial control. I consulted on the television series and, to a lesser extent, the printed materials associated with it. Blending the new, internationalist approaches to the Cold War with the latest research on the global south in a tumultuous era of decolonization and state-building, The Cold War in the Third World bring together diverse strands of scholarship to address some of the most compelling issues in modern world history.In his long, occasionally thoughtful, but ultimately harsh essay on CNN’s Cold War, Gabriel Schoenfeld wonders why the series does not in all respects reflect the perspective of my recent book, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, which he has generously reviewed. It also analyzes the impact of the Cold War on the developing states and societies of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Featuring original essays by twelve leading scholars, this collection examines the influence of the newly emerging states of the Third World on the course of the Cold War and on the international behavior and priorities of the two superpowers. Those two distinct but overlapping phenomena placed a powerful stamp on world history throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The Cold War in the Third World explores the complex interrelationships between the Soviet-American struggle for global preeminence and the rise of the Third World.

The cold war cnn